Teaching Facilitation Skills to Others : Growing Facilitators In a Consulting Situation

• External consultant brought in to transfer technical skills (team perceives need)
• Consultant sees lack of collaborative / communication skills (team does not perceive need)
• Any project is a social activity and we have to recognise that fact: facilitation is necessary
• It's always a people problem!
• Paradox: they hire you for the “hard skills” but it's the “soft” skills they lack… and they wouldn't hire anyone for those

TERMINOLOGY (because words matter): not “hard” vs. “soft” skills. Say “technical” vs. “collaborative” / “communication” / “social” / “interpersonal” instead… [communication and collaboration have already been highlighted as essential success factors for Agile teams]

• Latin root of facilitator is facile meaning easy
• Technical skills are easier to transfer when there is a higher social capability in the team

• Modelling: lead by example
• It's a bit like dog training or parenting (?!): consistently apply simple practices over and over until they “get it”
• When you see groups of people working / talking together go up and ask: “who's making sure that everyone's voice here gets heard?”
• Use reflective questioning: people will copy what you do
• Be explicit: when you do something important toss out an ironic “See how I did that ”
• Close the loop: highlight outcomes that demonstrate the value of what you do
• Give the opportunity to others: let them try to facilitate and provide feedback
• Actively seek out those who want to give it a go: their motivation is telling you something and allows self-selection
• Remember that others have to learn, even if you think that they can't / won't
• What is it in their behaviour that makes you doubt their ability? Can you reflect it back? E.g. “I find XYZ difficult to do when I facilitate a retrospective: how would you handle that…?”
• In a group have them practice facilitation in pairs, swapping roles: they will discover who can and who can't do it
• Allow them to find out for themselves how suitable they are, through the experience of doing it: stand-up meetings are an easy place to start
• Allow yourself to change your role to create space for the team to expand into

• “When they are ready”… readiness comes with time
• When they are in pain / aware of the need for change
• When they have moved from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence

Clues to look for:

• the same “do differently” comes up 3 times in a row in retrospectives
• people say that “I really like your meetings”
• folks just ask for help, e.g. “There's something I need to tell someone but I don't want to hurt their feelings”
• people notice that “making decisions on our team takes forever”
• the project gets stuck: e.g. technical problems unresolved, customer issues unresolved, and They (the nameless Other or a consistent named scapegoat) is to blame

• Shouldn't expect people to become great facilitators but should expect them to become basic facilitators
• Give enough of a context to hang new information on to

• 5= number of fingers on one hand, large enough to be useful, small enough to be memorable
• Can be used as a checklist if necessary!

• Prepare an agenda and use it
• Establish a shared purpose
• “Excuse me but is that the purpose of this meeting?” to handle deviations

• And keep the wrong people out of the room
• Distinguish between chickens and pigs (chickens are involved but pigs are committed): pigs are candidate attendees but chickens are usually not

• The facilitator owns the process
• The group owns the outcomes
• The facilitator supports the group, and the scribe (if there is one) supports the facilitator

• Create an action plan or at least check-in to see if one is required

• “Meet people where they are”
• Allow attendees to be silent when it is appropriate
• Elicit contributions safely when it is appropriate

Convened by TimBacon